Toward Participatory Ecological Design of Technological Systems

Introduction Environmental controversy is controversy about what kinds of technology designs work, what kinds don’t work, and what it means ecologically, economically, and politically for a particular design to “work.” So although ecological debate historically has not been framed as debate about design, proposals for ecological reform should be understood, in part, as proposals for green or ecological design of technological systems.1 And the wide range of contemporary frameworks for ecological reform2 should be recognized to provide diverse, even competing, foundations for ecodesign. It is reasonable to expect, for example, that ecodesign based on a libertarian “wise use” philosophy would look quite different from ecodesign based on ecocentric “deep ecology.” In light of the deeply social character of all design,3 a crucial component of ecodesign criticism as it matures 4 will be assessment of these frameworks’ relative fitness as foundations for effectively engaging ecodesign as a social process. Significantly, some reform frameworks appear to largely ignore the social dimensions of technological change or envision them as residing “outside” of the design process, while others regard them as central. What are the implications for ecodesign, given that we must define it as the design of technosocial systems for compatibility with ecological systems? As ecodesign criticism struggles with this question, one issue deserving special attention will be the relationship between experts and laypeople, which, in design and many other contexts, embodies deep assumptions about the relationship between the technical and the social. A major theme in recent democratic theory has been that the line between experts and laypeople often has been conceptualized and enacted in ways that are socially harmful—and urgently needs to be renegotiated.5 This is a theme that science and technology scholars have elaborated in analyses of decision making about technology; 6 and some scholars have pointed out that depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and other major technological impacts on the environment have begun prompting just such a renegotiation.7 Indeed, struggles over the expert/lay divide have been prominent in many environmental controversies, such as in cases of “popular epidemiology.” In such controversies, laypeople contest scientists’ and engineers’ values and assumptions, their theories and meth1 See Kate T. Fletcher and Phillip A. Goggin, “The Dominant Stances on Ecodesign: A Critique,” Design Issues 17: 3 (2001): 15–25. 2 See John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg, eds., Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998). 3 E. J. Woodhouse and Jason W. Patton, “Design by Society: Science and Technology Studies and the Social Shaping of Design,” Design Issues, this issue. 4 See Pauline Madge, “Ecological Design: A New Critique,” Design Issues 13:2 (1997): 44–54. 5 Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy (Berkeley: University of California, 1984) and Charles Lindblom, Inquiry and Change: The Troubled Attempt to Understand and Shape Society (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1990). 6 Frank Fischer, Technocracy and the Politics of Expertise (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990); Richard E. Sclove, Democracy and Technology (New York: Guilford, 1995); and E. J. Woodhouse and Dean Nieusma, “When Expert Advice Works, and When It Does Not,” IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 16:1 (1997): 23–29. 7 E.g., Silvio O. Funtowicz and Jerome R. Ravetz, “Science for the Post-Normal Age,” Futures [Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd.] 25:7(1993): 739–55; and Jane Lubchenco, “Entering the Century of the Environment: A New Social Contract for Science,” Science 279 (1998): 491–7.